


Blossom

by autumnsolstice9



Series: Justice [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 12:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16219022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsolstice9/pseuds/autumnsolstice9
Summary: Hinata has left her behind, too.Sakura wonders if Naruto hurts as much as she does.Or: Sakura in the wake of Hinata leaving





	Blossom

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read without reading Remembrance, but I would recommend reading that first so you have the background.

Sakura screams into her pillow.

It’s happening again, her mind yells, someone’s left again!

Hinata is gone, the same as Sasuke, and Sakura is left behind to pick up the pieces of her broken heart. At least with Sasuke she understood why he left. He was angry, he was torn to pieces, he was filled with bloodlust and revenge.

Hinata is none of those things, or so she thought. She sits in her tiny tent in the ruins of Konoha and does not eat or sleep, only thinks, trying to figure out why the sweet Hyuuga would leave the village.

She goes to the bathroom and looks in the mirror and in it, she sees heartbreak. She sees fury and tastes betrayal on her tongue. Sakura knows who she is, knows she has been forged from anger and being left behind by those she cares about. Kakashi-sensei left her behind, Naruto left, Sasuke is still gone.

Hinata has left her behind, too.

Sakura wonders if Naruto hurts as much as she does.

***

She continues on. Medics are desperately needed in the wake of Pein’s attack, and Sakura is one of the best. She works on five Hyuuga guards, dog bites littering their skin and stings covering anywhere visible.

Later on, she sees Kiba and Shino walk proudly through the village, bruises peeking out from underneath their jackets. She wants to know how they can stand tall when Hinata is gone, how they can bear to be in the village without their teammate. When Sasuke had left, she felt like her world was crumbling.

The remaining members of team 8 do not waver, even as whispers follow them through the village.

Sakura puts the pieces together, knows that Kiba and Shino had attacked the Hyuuga guards. Anger and confusion sit heavy in her gut- why would they let their teammate leave?

If she could go back in time, she would have done anything to keep Sasuke from leaving.

She watches as team 8 makes their way further down the row of makeshift-housing until they disappear.

It is not until later that she realizes they were wearing their forehead protectors around their necks, the way Hinata did, and if that isn’t the biggest sign of support for someone who is now a missing-nin, Sakura doesn’t know what is.

They obviously know something she doesn’t, and she feels like a genin again, waiting for her teammates to return from wherever they went so she wouldn’t be alone.

Even after all these years, abandonment is a familiar friend.

***

She fell in love with Hinata slowly. She can’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened, just that it was gradual and, she thinks, inevitable.

She remembers watching Hinata fight her cousin at the chunin exams, watching someone she never thought much of continue to get up and fight even as her body started to shut down.

She remembers thinking that Hinata was a fighter, that her eyes glowed like a full moon, that she moved gracefully, that this tiny, forgotten girl was what a shinobi should be.

She remembers holding her breath as Neji hit her, and that when Hinata hit the ground, something indescribable built up inside Sakura’s chest. Each time Hinata fell, she was sure it was the end of the fight. Yet the tiny Hyuuga kept going, and each time Hinata got up, that feeling built inside her.

It wasn’t love, not yet.

But it was the start of it.

***

“Kakashi-sensei, I don’t understand it. Why would she leave?”

The copy-nin has always been hard to read. She has had years of experience, but she still struggles to figure him out sometimes. He looks thoughtful, and she isn’t sure if he’s thinking about what response to give her or if he knows what’s going on and is trying to word it properly for her. 

“The Hyuuga can see everything,” he says after a long pause, “But sometimes those with the best vision cannot truly see. Hinata-san can see better than the rest of the clan.”

“Her byakugan does have a wider range than the others,” Sakura responds, still confused. Everyone knew Hinata worked hard to make her byakugan strong, its range of view impressive even compared to the greats of the Hyuuga clan.

Kakashi gives her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Yes,” he tells her, and his words seem heavy for some reason she cannot make sense of, “Hinata can see what many other Hyuuga cannot.”

She and her sensei have always had an awkward relationship, both of them never close enough to each other to have sincere moments outside of fights and training. This feels close to it, though, and Sakura decides she can tell her sensei all she thinks because, after all, the heartbreak of a kunoichi is much easier to handle than the last Uchiha and the jinchuuriki. 

“I love her,” she states simply. It is the first time she has said it out loud, and her sensei’s only sign of surprise is a twitch of his hand. “I love her, and she’s gone, and it feels like Sasuke all over again. I feel like I’m being left behind. I feel like everyone I love is destined to leave, and it’s not like when Naruto left to train with Jiraiya. It feels like they’re gone and I want to go get her back, to chase after her like I should have done with Sasuke, but I can’t stop thinking that this is destiny. That they’re always going to leave me.” Her heart hurts, her chest feels like it is caving in, and she may be one of the best medics in Konoha but she doesn't know how to heal it.

Her sensei turns his head towards her, and his one visible eye swims with guilt and his mouth is open like he wants to tell her something before he clicks it shut. “She will come back,” he says, his words clear and imploring her to find some secret meaning in them. “Hinata-san is going to come back.”

“How can you be sure? Danzo would never let her back, not when she’s a missing-nin.”

“She will come back, and if Tsunade isn’t back as Hokage by then and Danzo doesn’t let her in, then I will. The Hatake compound is open to her if she needs it.” She didn’t know that her sensei cared about Hinata, and she tells him as much. It’s hard to tell behind the mask, but she’s certain he has a bitter smile on his face. “She sees what other Hyuuga cannot.”

He starts to leave the training field they’re at, but not before he turns back and gives her one last look, filled with warning she has seen on missions so many times before. “Sakura, don’t tell anyone about this.”

She’s still confused, but she doesn’t argue. She spends the next week thinking about Hyuuga eyes that apparently cannot see, a sensei who would open his compound to a missing-nin, and a girl who seems almost prophesied to return.

***

Sakura saw Hinata fall many times. She saw her pick herself up even more.

This is how she fell in love- pupiless eyes hardened to kill that soften when she looks into them, calloused hands riddled with scars pushing Sakura away from threatening hits, a kunoichi who was beaten down and got back up.

She fell in love watching Hinata throw herself into her training not to become the strongest, but just to be strong. Not to be Hokage, but to instead be allowed to live as Hinata.

She fell in love over years of watching someone blossom. She thinks that Ino was right, all those years ago, that people really do just need support to bloom. Sakura knows she is a flower, a singular piece of strength. Hinata is a tree, reaching out to support more than just herself.

She fell in love watching blood spill from Hinata’s mouth as Neji beat her to death, a smile on her lips as she tumbled into what Sakura thought was death. It wasn’t love then, not real, true, strong love like it is now.

But it was almost the same.

***

Naruto looks at her from across the table of the cafe they’re at. He has been his usual hyperactive self, and it makes Sakura furious.

“Well?” she cuts in, interrupting whatever story he was telling. “Did you ever answer her?”

He at least has the audacity to look ashamed. “I, well, I didn’t get the chance,” he mumbles.

“So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to chase after her, bring her back to the village?”

His silence says more than enough.

She is angry. This is the boy who chased Sasuke around the world, Sasuke who tried to kill them both so many times. Yet Hinata is gone and Naruto is going to do nothing.

“She loves you,” Sakura shoots at him, “She died for you. You’re not going to do anything?”

Naruto actually looks upset. His lips are turned down into a frown and his brow is furrowed. A darkness swirls in his eyes and Sakura would be upset over hurting her friend if rage didn’t burn her tongue.

“What do you want me to do? Chase after her? Bring her back?”

“Yes!” Sakura bellows, gaining looks from others in the cafe. She slams her palm on the table, reminiscent of Tsunade. “Get her back! Give her an answer! Do something!”

He suddenly stands up from the table, his chair nearly toppling over. His face is covered in shadows, and his voice is so quiet that it’s hard to believe it’s Naruto speaking. “Sasuke is easy. I can understand why he left. I don’t know why she left. Why would she do it? Why would she leave?” He finally looks up at Sakura, and guilt plunges into her stomach when she sees the empty look in his eyes. “Why would she leave, Sakura? Konoha is home. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why she left. Everyone keeps acting like it’s okay, but it’s not! Kiba and Shino won’t tell me anything. No one is telling me anything!”

In her own mourning, Sakura has forgotten that Naruto is just at lonely as she is, just as forgotten.

“Do you love her?” she whispers, scared of his answer.

“I don’t know,” he tells her, honestly, “I don’t think I know what love really is. I love ramen. I love Iruka-sensei. I love you and Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei. I love Konoha. I love Hinata, but I don’t know if it’s the love she deserves.”

He sits back down at the table, and all the fight she felt in her crumbles to dust.

“Sakura, what do we do? She’s a missing-nin. Her team refuses to chase after her. Are we missing something?”

She wants to shake Kiba and Shino, grab Kakashi-sensei and everyone who knows what she doesn’t and demand answers. She and Naruto are left behind and lonely and Hinata is _gone_.

“She told me,” she shakily says. “She wanted to wear her hitai-ate like Neji does.” At this, Naruto sharply looks up, his face growing dark. “It was the last thing she said to me and I can’t make sense of it. Let’s bring her back home, Naruto, I want her back home.”

“No,” he says, grim. “No, we can’t. Sakura, the hitai-ate, Neji, the _seal_.”

Everything clicks into place.

“We can’t bring her back, Sakura. We have to let her leave.”

She doesn’t bring up Hinata for the rest of the evening, and neither does Naruto. Instead they sit in silence, and she tries to pretend she doesn’t see her own heartbreak reflected in her teammate’s eyes.

When the sky grows dark and they leave the cafe, she places a heavy hand on Naruto’s arm. “Kakashi-sensei says she’ll be back,” she tells him, even though the words feel hollow. “I don’t know why or when she’ll come back, but he says she will.”

Naruto doesn’t answer.

“We just have to wait,” she breathes out into the night, hoping that if she says it, then it will be true. “We wait for her to come back.”

She doesn’t know how long that will be. She and Naruto leave to go to their individual homes and wait.

Her heart still hurts. Across the village, his does, too.

Miles and miles away, Hinata sleeps under stars and aches.

**Author's Note:**

> hiashi die challenge


End file.
